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Although it has been demonstrated that the speed and magnitude of the recent Arctic sea ice decline is unprecedented for the past 1450 years, few records are available to provide a paleoclimate context for Arctic sea ice extent. Bromine enrichment in ice cores has been suggested to indicate the extent of newly formed sea ice areas. Despite the similarities among sea ice indicators and ice core bromine enrichment records, uncertainties still exist regarding the quantitative linkages between bromine reactive chemistry and the first-year sea ice surfaces. Here we present a 120 000-year record of bromine enrichment from the RECAP (REnland ice CAP) ice core, coastal east Greenland, and interpret it as a record of first-year sea ice. We compare it to existing sea ice records from marine cores and tentatively reconstruct past sea ice conditions in the North Atlantic as far north as the Fram Strait (50–85∘ N). Our interpretation implies that during the last deglaciation, the transition from multi-year to first-year sea ice started at ∼17.5 ka, synchronously with sea ice reductions observed in the eastern Nordic Seas and with the increase in North Atlantic ocean temperature. First-year sea ice reached its maximum at 12.4–11.8 ka during the Younger Dryas, after which open-water conditions started to dominate, consistent with sea ice records from the eastern Nordic Seas and the North Icelandic shelf. Our results show that over the last 120 000 years, multi-year sea ice extent was greatest during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2 and possibly during MIS 4, with more extended first-year sea ice during MIS 3 and MIS 5. Sea ice extent during the Holocene (MIS 1) has been less than at any time in the last 120 000 years.

We present a 2700-year annually resolved chronology and snow accumulation history for the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) ice core, Ross Ice Shelf, West Antarctica. The core adds information on past accumulation changes in an otherwise poorly constrained sector of Antarctica. The timescale was constructed by identifying annual cycles in high-resolution impurity records, and it constitutes the top part of the Roosevelt Island Ice Core Chronology 2017 (RICE17). Validation by volcanic and methane matching to the WD2014 chronology from the WAIS Divide ice core shows that the two timescales are in excellent agreement. In a companion paper, gas matching to WAIS Divide is used to extend the timescale for the deeper part of the core in which annual layers cannot be identified. Based on the annually resolved timescale, we produced a record of past snow accumulation at Roosevelt Island. The accumulation history shows that Roosevelt Island experienced slightly increasing accumulation rates between 700 BCE and 1300 CE, with an average accumulation of 0.25±0.02 m water equivalent (w.e.) per year. Since 1300 CE, trends in the accumulation rate have been consistently negative, with an acceleration in the rate of decline after the mid-17th century. The current accumulation rate at Roosevelt Island is 0.210±0.002 m w.e. yr−1 (average since 1965 CE, ±2σ), and it is rapidly declining with a trend corresponding to 0.8 mm yr−2. The decline observed since the mid-1960s is 8 times faster than the long-term decreasing trend taking place over the previous centuries, with decadal mean accumulation rates consistently being below average. Previous research has shown a strong link between Roosevelt Island accumulation rates and the location and intensity of the Amundsen Sea Low, which has a significant impact on regional sea-ice extent. The decrease in accumulation rates at Roosevelt Island may therefore be explained in terms of a recent strengthening of the ASL and the expansion of sea ice in the eastern Ross Sea. The start of the rapid decrease in RICE accumulation rates observed in 1965 CE may thus mark the onset of significant increases in regional sea-ice extent.

The last deglaciation represents the most recent example of natural global warming associated with large-scale climate changes. In addition to the long-term global temperature increase, the last deglaciation onset is punctuated by a sequence of abrupt changes in the Northern Hemisphere. Such interplay between orbital- and millennial-scale variability is widely documented in paleoclimatic records but the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Limitations arise from the difficulty in constraining the sequence of events between external forcing, high- and low- latitude climate, and environmental changes. Greenland ice cores provide sub-decadal-scale records across the last deglaciation and contain fingerprints of climate variations occurring in different regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Here, we combine new ice d-excess and 17O-excess records, tracing changes in the midlatitudes, with ice δ18O records of polar climate. Within Heinrich Stadial 1, we demonstrate a decoupling between climatic conditions in Greenland and those of the lower latitudes. While Greenland temperature remains mostly stable from 17.5 to 14.7 ka, significant change in the midlatitudes of the northern Atlantic takes place at ∼16.2 ka, associated with warmer and wetter conditions of Greenland moisture sources. We show that this climate modification is coincident with abrupt changes in atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations recorded in an Antarctic ice core. Our coherent ice core chronological framework and comparison with other paleoclimate records suggests a mechanism involving two-step freshwater fluxes in the North Atlantic associated with a southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone.

The last interglacial period (LIG, ∼ 129–116 thousand years ago) provides the most recent case study of multimillennial polar warming above the preindustrial level and a response of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to this warming, as well as a test bed for climate and ice sheet models. Past changes in Greenland ice sheet thickness and surface temperature during this period were recently derived from the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) ice core records, northwest Greenland. The NEEM paradox has emerged from an estimated large local warming above the preindustrial level (7.5 ± 1.8 °C at the deposition site 126 kyr ago without correction for any overall ice sheet altitude changes between the LIG and the preindustrial period) based on water isotopes, together with limited local ice thinning, suggesting more resilience of the real Greenland ice sheet than shown in some ice sheet models. Here, we provide an independent assessment of the average LIG Greenland surface warming using ice core air isotopic composition (δ15N) and relationships between accumulation rate and temperature. The LIG surface temperature at the upstream NEEM deposition site without ice sheet altitude correction is estimated to be warmer by +8.5 ± 2.5 °C compared to the preindustrial period. This temperature estimate is consistent with the 7.5 ± 1.8 °C warming initially determined from NEEM water isotopes but at the upper end of the preindustrial period to LIG temperature difference of +5.2 ± 2.3 °C obtained at the NGRIP (North Greenland Ice Core Project) site by the same method. Climate simulations performed with present-day ice sheet topography lead in general to a warming smaller than reconstructed, but sensitivity tests show that larger amplitudes (up to 5 °C) are produced in response to prescribed changes in sea ice extent and ice sheet topography.

The terrestrial biosphere is thought to be a key component in the climatic variability seen in the palaeo-record. It has a direct impact on surface temperature through changes in surface albedo and evapotranspiration (so-called biogeophysical effects) and, in addition, has an important indirect effect through changes in vegetation and soil carbon storage (biogeochemical effects) and hence modulates the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The biogeochemical and biogeophysical effects generally have opposite signs, meaning that the terrestrial biosphere could potentially have played only a very minor role in the dynamics of the glacial–interglacial cycles of the late Quaternary. Here we use a fully coupled dynamic atmosphere–ocean–vegetation general circulation model (GCM) to generate a set of 62 equilibrium simulations spanning the last 120 kyr. The analysis of these simulations elucidates the relative importance of the biogeophysical versus biogeochemical terrestrial biosphere interactions with climate. We find that the biogeophysical effects of vegetation account for up to an additional −0.91 °C global mean cooling, with regional cooling as large as −5 °C, but with considerable variability across the glacial–interglacial cycle. By comparison, while opposite in sign, our model estimates of the biogeochemical impacts are substantially smaller in magnitude. Offline simulations show a maximum of +0.33 °C warming due to an increase of 25 ppm above our (pre-industrial) baseline atmospheric CO2 mixing ratio. In contrast to shorter (century) timescale projections of future terrestrial biosphere response where direct and indirect responses may at times cancel out, we find that the biogeophysical effects consistently and strongly dominate the biogeochemical effect over the inter-glacial cycle. On average across the period, the terrestrial biosphere has a −0.26 °C effect on temperature, with −0.58 °C at the Last Glacial Maximum. Depending on assumptions made about the destination of terrestrial carbon under ice sheets and where sea level has changed, the average terrestrial biosphere contribution over the last 120 kyr could be as much as −50 °C and −0.83 °C at the Last Glacial Maximum.

The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, ~ 56 Ma) was a ~ 200 kyr episode of global warming, associated with massive injections of 13C-depleted carbon into the ocean–atmosphere system. Although climate change during the PETM is relatively well constrained, effects on marine oxygen concentrations and nutrient cycling remain largely unclear. We identify the PETM in a sediment core from the US margin of the Gulf of Mexico. Biomarker-based paleotemperature proxies (methylation of branched tetraether–cyclization of branched tetraether (MBT–CBT) and TEX86) indicate that continental air and sea surface temperatures warmed from 27–29 to ~ 35 °C, although variations in the relative abundances of terrestrial and marine biomarkers may have influenced these estimates. Vegetation changes, as recorded from pollen assemblages, support this warming. The PETM is bracketed by two unconformities. It overlies Paleocene silt- and mudstones and is rich in angular (thus in situ produced; autochthonous) glauconite grains, which indicate sedimentary condensation. A drop in the relative abundance of terrestrial organic matter and changes in the dinoflagellate cyst assemblages suggest that rising sea level shifted the deposition of terrigenous material landward. This is consistent with previous findings of eustatic sea level rise during the PETM. Regionally, the attribution of the glauconite-rich unit to the PETM implicates the dating of a primate fossil, argued to represent the oldest North American specimen on record. The biomarker isorenieratene within the PETM indicates that euxinic photic zone conditions developed, likely seasonally, along the Gulf Coastal Plain. A global data compilation indicates that O2 concentrations dropped in all ocean basins in response to warming, hydrological change, and carbon cycle feedbacks. This culminated in (seasonal) anoxia along many continental margins, analogous to modern trends. Seafloor deoxygenation and widespread (seasonal) anoxia likely caused phosphorus regeneration from suboxic and anoxic sediments. We argue that this fueled shelf eutrophication, as widely recorded from microfossil studies, increasing organic carbon burial along many continental margins as a negative feedback to carbon input and global warming. If properly quantified with future work, the PETM offers the opportunity to assess the biogeochemical effects of enhanced phosphorus regeneration, as well as the timescales on which this feedback operates in view of modern and future ocean deoxygenation.

All species of coccolithophore appear to respond to perturbations of carbonate chemistry in a different way. Here, we show that the degree of malformation, growth rate and stable isotopic composition of organic matter and carbonate produced by two contrasting species of coccolithophore (Gephyrocapsa oceanica and Coccolithus pelagicus ssp. braarudii) are indicative of differences between their photosynthetic and calcification response to changing DIC levels (ranging from ~1100 to ~7800 μmol kg−1) at constant pH (8.13 ± 0.02). Gephyrocapsa oceanica thrived under all conditions of DIC, showing evidence of increased growth rates at higher DIC, but C. braarudii was detrimentally affected at high DIC showing signs of malformation, and decreased growth rates. The carbon isotopic fractionation into organic matter and the coccoliths suggests that C. braarudii utilises a common internal pool of carbon for calcification and photosynthesis but G. oceanica relies on independent supplies for each process. All coccolithophores appear to utilize bicarbonate as their ultimate source of carbon for calcification resulting in the release of a proton. But, we suggest that this proton can be harnessed to enhance the supply of CO2(aq) for photosynthesis either from a large internal HCO3- pool which acts as a pH buffer (C. braarudii), or pumped externally to aid the diffusive supply of CO2 across the membrane from the abundant HCO3- (G. oceanica), likely mediated by an internal and external carbonic anhydrase respectively. Our simplified hypothetical spectrum of physiologies may provide a context to understand different species response to changing pH and DIC, the species-specific εp and calcite "vital effects", as well as accounting for geological trends in coccolithophore cell size.

In 2013, an ice core was recovered from Roosevelt Island in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, as part of the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) project. Roosevelt Island is located between two submarine troughs carved by paleo-ice-streams. The RICE ice core provides new important information about the past configuration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and its retreat during the most recent deglaciation. In this work, we present the RICE17 chronology and discuss preliminary observations from the new records of methane, the isotopic composition of atmospheric molecular oxygen (δ18O-Oatm), the isotopic composition of atmospheric molecular nitrogen (δ15N-N2) and total air content (TAC). RICE17 is a composite chronology combining annual layer interpretations, gas synchronization, and firn modeling strategies in different sections of the core. An automated matching algorithm is developed for synchronizing the high-resolution section of the RICE gas records (60–720 m, 1971 CE to 30 ka) to corresponding records from the WAIS Divide ice core, while deeper sections are manually matched. Ice age for the top 343 m (2635 yr BP, before 1950 C.E.) is derived from annual layer interpretations and described in the accompanying paper by Winstrup et al. (2017). For deeper sections, the RICE17 ice age scale is based on the gas age constraints and the ice age-gas age offset estimated by a firn densification model. Novel aspects of this work include: 1) stratigraphic matching of centennial-scale variations in methane for pre-anthropogenic time periods, a strategy which will be applicable for developing precise chronologies for future ice cores, 2) the observation of centennial-scale variability in methane throughout the Holocene which suggests that similar variations during the late preindustrial period need not be anthropogenic, and 3) the observation of continuous climate records dating back to ∼ 65 ka which provide evidence that the Roosevelt Island Ice Dome was a constant feature throughout the last glacial period.